HYDERABAD, Aug 7: The chief engineer of the Kotri Barrage, Mr Manzoor Shaikh, has said that irrigation authorities are maintaining a round-the-clock surveillance along Indus embankments in the wake of medium flood which may hit the Kotri Barrage on August 15-16.

He said that armed forces had been in a close liaison with the irrigation staff for ensuring check on 31 points that had been identified as vulnerable.

Speaking to journalists at the Kotri Barrage on Monday, he said that it would take two weeks for flood waters to reach Kotri.

He said that it was expected that about 425,000 cusecs of water would hit the Indus upstream at the Kotri Barrage.

Mr Shaikh said that at present there was low flood at the barrage and about 80,000 cusecs of water was available at the upstream and 9,000 cusecs at downstream.

He said that the Moolchand-Shah Bunder (MS) bund’s mile 42/5 to 45/3 near Sujawal in Thatta district was the most vulnerable point.

“At present there is no danger at Kotri upstream and downstream at any point,” the chief engineer said.

He said that the MS bund had been given new touches this year.

He said that designed discharge of the Kotri Barrage was 875,000 cusecs when it was built in 1955 but 981,000 cusecs of water had passed through it.

He said that when ever there was indication of more than 500,000 cusecs it signified high flood in the system.

He said that at present there was indication of medium flood as 425,000 cusecs of water would pass.

He said that after meeting requirements of off-taking canals water would flow to downstream.

“The army is also coordinating with us and we are obtaining bulldozers and other material for necessary work because still we have time to strengthen our system. If needed we can seek the help of the army,” he said.

He said that a control room was also working round the clock.

He said that some points that were under his jurisdiction in the capacity of managing-director of Sida were also being looked after properly.

He said that the irrigation staff and sub-engineers had shifted their headquarters to embankments and that work charge establishment had been employed for maintenance of bunds.

He said that aabkalani material had been procured and machinery of the feeder division was put on high alert so that it could be deployed on predetermined vulnerable locations.

Referring to the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD), he said that cuts that had been given by people in haste had been plugged by authorities.

He said that the army had visited the LBOD and inspected it independently.

“The situation is however normal,” he said.

He said that the LBOD system — the Kadhan-Pateji Outfall Drain (KPOD), Dhoro Puran Outfall Drain (DPOD) and the LBOD spinal and their branches — come in the jurisdiction of the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Sida).

He said that the system included 192.8 miles of outfall drains, supported by branch drains and sub-drains having a catchments area of 1.27 million of acres with designed capacity of 4,600 cusecs of water but it had successfully drained out 10,000 cusecs.

He said that after record-breaking rain floods in 2003, the federal government had allocated Rs100 million through which rehabilitation of damaged portions of the system were executed in 2004-05 and 2005-06.

He said that during the current monsoon, no damage had been caused to the LBOD as monitoring had been intensively done and the system was operating normally.

Exam schedule: The controller of examination of the University of Sindh has notified schedule for submission of examination forms by candidates of postgraduate regular classes from degree colleges.

According to a statement issued here on Saturday, last date for submission of examination forms to be obtained from postgraduate degree colleges without late fee had been fixed as August 25.

It announced that examination fee for MA and MCom (previous) fresh and failure candidates had been fixed as Rs1,455.

The notification said that Rs2,170 had been fixed for examination fee for fresh candidates of MA (final) and MCom (final) and Rs1,705 for failures candidates appearing in examinations.

For MSc (previous) fresh candidates, the examination fee for fresh and failures candidates has been fixed as Rs1,505 while for MSc (final) fresh candidates Rs2,170 and Rs1,705 has been fixed for failures.

After expiry date, late fee of Rs500 would be charged from August 26-31 and late fee of Rs1,000 will be charged from September 1 to September 7, from the candidates of all examinations.